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Oct 7, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Around The World

TEHRAN, Iran

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has launched a website for the first time in a move widely interpreted as an attempt to soften its image and coax Iranians into helping provide the country's spies with information.

The website, vaja.ir, gives the location of secret service buildings in provincial towns and encourages Iranians to contact the ministry if they have information.

The website, which was launched Saturday, also trumpets what it describes as Iranian achievements in its long-running intelligence battle with the West, including the capture of a U.S. surveillance drone last year.

BRIEFLY ...

? TEHRAN, Iran - In a bid to ease international concerns over its nuclear program, Iran has converted more than a third of Tehran's most highly enriched uranium into a powder for a medical research reactor that is difficult to reprocess for weapons production, experts and U.N. monitors say.

? JERUSALEM - Israel scrambled fighter jets to intercept a drone Saturday that crossed deep into Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean Sea, shooting the aircraft down over the country's southern desert, the military said.

? SEOUL, South Korea - A North Korean soldier killed two of his superiors Saturday and defected to South Korea across the countries' heavily armed border in a rare crossing that prompted South Korean troops to immediately beef up their border patrol, officials said.

? JALINGO, Nigeria - Authorities say two people have been killed in bomb attacks on informal beer gardens in Nigeria amid attacks by a radical Islamist sect.

Compiled from wire reports

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